Workers

Welcome release from detention for Stella Shoe Factory Workers - criminal charges remain

On 29 October and 24 November, the ICFTU wrote to the Chinese president Hu Jintao to express condemnation of the heavy prison sentences imposed on ten workers from Stella International’s Xing Ang and Xing Xiong shoe factories by the Dongguan Municipal People’s Court in southern China.

We have now learned that at an appeal hearing at the Dongguan Intermediate People's Court on 31 December 2004, all seven workers remaining in detention since April 2004 were released after their original sentences of up to three-and-a-half years' imprisonment were reduced to nine-months, suspended for one year. The three other workers initially detained and reported to be under-age had their original suspended prison sentences dropped.

This reversal of the sentencing of the factory workers – all of whom had been involved in two mass protests involving thousands of workers over excessive hours, low pay, frequent wage arrears and poor food on 21 and 23 April 2004 - is believed to represent a significant landmark in the history of the modern labour movement in China. Despite this however, the original charges of "intentional destruction of property" and criminal records remain.